Monthly Archives: September 2010

‘Peace Talks’ are Falling Down—They have not fallen yet; they are falling. And I am only trying to accelerate their downfall, because…because they are futile, denigrating, and farcical.

I will call a spade a spade; it was only recently I could make up my mind that I am against the so-called ‘peace process’. It gave me a hell of time trying to figure it out: should I be with or against the peace process?

True. It won’t make such a huge difference. Nor will it change the course of these ceremonial negotiations. And surely it will never rob our puppets of their glamorous grins lavishly scattered hither and thither. My attitude, like any other Palestinian’s, will not rob them of their presumably broad appetite while sitting at one table with the perpetrators of the ugliest and most brutal massacres in the history of Palestine. None of that will my attitude pose the least threat whatsoever to.

At one table also with my fellows, the subject of the ‘peace process’ was addressed. I was more daring this time, speaking up my mind, perhaps trying to formulate my stance by the mere act of opposing. I stated that I am not against ‘peace’. I am with going to the White House and holding these negotiations, hopefully it will bring about some stability and peace to the region. Continue reading →

It is a misfortune for anyone to be homeless. And it’s likely that there is nothing worse than being homeless, for it simply means you don’t have a place to sleep in. I know nobody who doesn’t have a place to sleep in, but I do know many who have a worse misfortune than this little plight of homelessness. I am one of them. It is to be ‘homelandess’—I doubt you ever heard about it. So let’s call it ‘countryless’, or ‘nationless’. (didn’t make a difference, did it? never mind, I won’t repeat it very often).

My concise Oxford dictionary states that a homeless person is that who is of no fixed abode. It’s necessary, therefore, for one to have a place to eat, sleep, and live under which roof so as not to be stigmatised as ‘homeless’. And it’s as well necessary for one to have a homeland to belong to so as not to be of the second case. But what if this homeland no more exists? What if it is substituted by another homeland which is allegedly more national to its inhabitants that the former to its?—Well, obviously these people will no longer have a homeland of their own and become ‘homelandess’. There is yet an escape from this quandary: it is to create a new homeland to live in.

It can be effortlessly discerned that there is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in the vocabulary of international policy; that is, the sort of Palestine which is internationally recognised so that it is on the list and no longer deliberately omitted when I roll down the list of countries before I complete my registration on the web for some membership. There is no such Palestine. Yet, as defiant as we are, Continue reading →

Remembering Edward Said

“I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause.”

“Remember the solidarity shown to Palestine here and everywhere... and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.”